No, We Do Not Need to Replace Obamacare

It’s amazing how quickly people can become conditioned.

In 2008, Obama and the Democrats began telling us (again, as bad ideas never die in Washington D.C.) that America was suffering from an epidemic of people dying on emergency room floors because they don’t have health insurance. WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING RIGHT AWAY!

Of course, it didn’t matter that we already have laws and measures in every state that prevent any person from being denied vital treatment due to inability to pay. It didn’t matter that we already have Medicaid and Medicare and a myriad of state programs designed to provide healthcare services to people who can’t afford them. It didn’t matter that the U.S. healthcare system was (and still is) one of the most envied in the world.

We needed Obama’s plan and we needed it IMMEDIATELY!

What we got in the end was a massive bill that changed the insurance industry but did nothing in the way of healthcare except to make it more expensive. While some people were able to sign up for previously unaffordable insurance through the Obamacare exchanges, many more simply lost their insurance altogether. You’ll notice that Democrats rarely bring up the number of uninsured anymore. That’s because it’s gone UP since Obamacare. By the way, have we seen those uninsured people dying on hospital floors lately?

Unable to afford the 200%-400% rise in premiums many have simply chosen to pay the government’s extortion fee  fine and pay out-of-pocket for their health services…which for most Americans means depleting their savings.

Don’t even get me started on the “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” nonsense. Tell that to my hundreds and hundreds of readers who have contacted me over the years to say they’ve had to leave the doctors they’ve used and trusted for decades because of Obamacare.

We weren’t asking for an overhaul of the insurance system. In fact, many people who voted for Obama because of his healthcare promises did so because they assumed he meant the government was going to start paying for health services. Most people were not aware that this was simply a change in insurance laws and had no direct relation to actual services.The whole thing was just a shell game, an attempt to wrest government control over one fourth of the nation’s economy.

In just a few short years, the American electorate has been so conditioned into believing that government and healthcare are inextricably linked that few can fathom the idea of repealing a behemoth, still not-fully-understood bill without sticking something else in it’s place.

We don’t need anything else. For many, many, many years healthcare was a function of a relationship between a provider and the patient. It was not until government got involved that prices began to skyrocket. This is an indisputable fact – that anywhere government sticks it’s nose, services become more expensive. You may not see that expense, as in getting cheaper electric cars because of subsidies but on the back end those cars become exponentially more expensive to produce and that cost ends up being passed to you as the taxpayer anyway. In effect, you fund your own subsidies.

Replacing Obamacare capitulates to the idea that government has to have a place in every aspect of our lives. Healthcare is something we can manage on our own if we could be free to pursue competitive and personal options. Private charities have always been available to help needy families with their health needs. How many more of those would we have if more Americans had more of their own earned income in their pockets?

Many of us are now returning to the barter system, where patients and their doctors simply negotiate a cash price themselves. This doesn’t solve the problem of catastrophic medical needs, but it is certainly a great thing for routine care because it is always cheaper than the rates the insurance companies negotiate.

What if your healthcare could be like your car insurance? You pay $100-$200 per month for catastrophic insurance – something to help you when you need major surgery or long-term care. The rest of the money you would spend on healthcare you simply deposit into your own bank accounts or into a Health Savings Account and pay cash as you go. That’s what we used to have. Now healthcare has tragically become synonymous with health insurance when in reality they are two very different and even conflicting concepts.

Obamacare just needs to be repealed. Regardless of party loyalties or ideologies it was never a good bill in the first place. It hadn’t even been read by the people who passed it, and it received not one vote from the opposing party. Not…one. Those who feel anger at the possibility of it’s repeal should really direct it toward their Democrat representatives who went ahead with a vote knowing they had no bi-partisan support. They set their own table. Don’t be mad at the guest that didn’t come to the party.

If anything needs to happen it’s more repeal. We shouldn’t be stopping at Obamacare. We should repeal the horrendous reforms that brought us HMOs and allowed for insurance monopolies. We should be encouraging an open market that can cross state lines and spur competition which always brings lower prices and better products.

This is the only action that is reasonable and has been proven to work in the past. Everything else is conjecture and emotion. The statistics don’t lie, and they were reflected in the November elections. Obamacare is a disaster. I don’t particularly relish the thought of any government, Republican or Democrat giving me any other legislation to replace it.

Just get out of the way and let the marketplace work its magic.

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